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Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH 1/4] CPU online/offline support in Xen

To: "Shan, Haitao" <haitao.shan@xxxxxxxxx>, Haitao Shan <maillists.shan@xxxxxxxxx>, "Tian, Kevin" <kevin.tian@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH 1/4] CPU online/offline support in Xen
From: Keir Fraser <keir.fraser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:52:31 +0100
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Thread-topic: [Xen-devel] Re: [PATCH 1/4] CPU online/offline support in Xen
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On 11/9/08 17:00, "Shan, Haitao" <haitao.shan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi, Keir,
> 
> Concerning the last running vcpu on the dying cpu, I have some thought.
> Yes, there would be a short time after the stop_machine_run when this vcpu
> v->processor == dying_cpu. But anyhow, we set fie __VPF_migrating flag for
> that vcpu and issued a schedule_softirq on the dying cpu.
> This softirq should run immediately after stop_machine context, am I right? If
> so, by the time the schedule softirq is executed, this last vcpu is migrated
> away from this dying cpu. But saving of its context will be delayed to
> play_dead->sync_lazy_context.
> If another cpu issues the schedule request to this dying cpu
> (vcpu_sleep_nosync->cpu_raise_softirq(vc->processor....)) during this time,
> the request will be serviced by the above code sequence. So it is safe in such
> cases.
> Am I missing something important? I am not quite confident on the statements,
> though.

I agree it looks safe.

By the way, have you considered using this hotplug functionality for power
management? If instead of for(;;) halt(); we instead hooked into Cx
management and tried to get into as deep sleep as possible (possibly even
supporting the really deep sleeps that power off a whole socket and mean you
*have* to come back via real mode) then this would give a nice
coarse-time-scale power management mechanism controllable from dom0.

I consider this might be a nice win for possibly less effort than is being
expended in trying to make idle residency times (and hence Cx residency
times) as long as possible.

 -- Keir



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